It’s easy to feel like we know Natalie Bassingthwaighte – a breakout role on Neighbours followed by stints on reality-TV judging panels and in musical theatre, not to mention a number-one pop album, have made her a household name. But like any woman, there’s so much more hidden below the surface.
Now, Bassingthwaighte is pulling back the curtain with her new memoir, Love Like This. Startling in its candour, the book is less a conventional celebrity bio and more a women’s circle in print. She doesn’t just share the highlight reel, she digs deep: abusive encounters early in her career, an affair, a teen pregnancy and the private reckoning that followed.
In an age drowning in airbrushed life stories, the rawness alone makes Love Like This a compelling read. “When I started writing, I felt waves of emotion because everyone would judge me. [But] I eventually let go … ‘You know what? Judge me! I’m not a perfect human. No-one is. Bring it on, bitches!’” she says with a laugh.
Hanging out on an inner-city Sydney balcony as the city hums below, Bassingthwaighte’s hard-won inner strength shines through.
Radiant without a trace of makeup, her hair is still tousled from yesterday’s marie claire shoot. “Back in the day, I didn’t have a clue on photoshoots,” she admits. “Having to act like a celebrity or model doesn’t sit well with me in any shape or form. But now, I try to channel characters and not take myself too seriously.”
In Love Like This, Bassingthwaighte realises that writing is a way to face all the things she’d worked so hard to bury. How does she feel now, as her blisteringly candid book launches? “To be honest, it’s mainly a gift to myself. It’s deeply personal to share and write your own story. You’re laying yourself and your creative abilities on the line. But being able to express myself in my own words is worth it.”
Bassingthwaighte brings the nostalgic Australiana of her 1970s childhood in “The Gong” (NSW’s Wollongong) to vivid life. You can almost hear the cicadas as she recalls damper around campfires, backyard totem tennis, Wizz Fizz packets and the glorious chaos of siblings, cousins, an adored aunty on a motorbike and her grandma’s pet kangaroo and cockatoo, Joey and Cocky.
“I’m so freakin’ Aussie,” she says. “I’m still a bogan through and through.” She dreamt big in her Holly Hobbie-themed bedroom, as her “rainbow-swirl” personality expressed itself. The family carport became a dance studio, before professional musical theatre beckoned – though breadcrumbs of trauma were already scattered along the path.
“When I was only 16, I learnt that men can manipulate and cross the line.” Love Like This recounts how a promising encounter with a TV producer turned into a terrifying abseiling excursion on Wollongong’s Mount Keira – something the producer claimed was required for a role.
Although he was married and expecting a child, his paternal manner evaporated on the mountain as he attempted to kiss her while at a precarious height. “It got really scary, fast,” she recalls. “My legs were dangling over the edge on a very narrow mountain ledge when the mood changed. I ran into the bushes with nowhere to go.”
The producer’s desire quickly turned to disdain. He warned: “If you tell anyone, no-one will believe you.” “I thought he was being a dickhead and tried to push it aside,” she says. “But I was just a kid and it wasn’t OK. It’s hard for girls to handle.
As time went on, these abusive experiences accumulated and compounded. Writing the book brought it all back.” There were plenty more speedbumps ahead. An accidental pregnancy at 17 – despite being on the pill – left her feeling that she had no choice but to terminate. “In my world at that time, if you’re pregnant, you can’t have the baby unless you’re married. My boyfriend and I weren’t ready; it was so hard.”
There was an agonising affair at 19 with a 55-year-old married man, whose baby Bassingthwaighte miscarried. Later, a black-out encounter with a “private-jet level” producer, after which she woke up in a hotel room with no memory of anything past her last drink. Then there was the experience of being shamed by church figures who were then in her life.
“They pointed the finger and blamed me for my early struggles, saying, ‘If you don’t change, all the bad things that will happen to you will happen tenfold.’ It was devastating. I thought, ‘This is all my fault, I’ve stuffed up.’ The pain of that never left me until a couple of years ago.”
But the show must go on, and Bassingthwaighte’s give-it-a-crack drive turbocharged a 30-year career, with plenty of showbiz fun and fizz in her book. She recalls finding fame in 2003 as everyone’s favourite villain, Izzy Hoyland, in Neighbours (“I guess you’re the new slut!” was the first-day greeting), treading the boards in the musicals Rent and Chicago, and joining Rogue Traders in 2004, catapulting her into the electro-pop spotlight with the hummable hit “Voodoo Child”.
Once, billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson playfully tossed her into the audience at a concert to liven up the crowd. In 2009, her debut solo album, 1000 Stars, entered the ARIA chart at number one, placing her in rare company alongside artists like Coldplay and Kylie Minogue.
Falling in love with Rogue Traders bandmate Cameron McGlinchey brought motherhood. “I love being a mum and my kids are my number one,” she says. “My daughter Harper is 15-going-on-25, and my son Hendrix is 12. They’re already chalk and cheese.” What kind of mum is she? “A communicator. I say to my kids, ‘If you’re ever in trouble, you call me – and don’t be worried that you’re in trouble! I’ll support you 100 per cent.’”
Like every working mum, she is mastering the juggle. “The entertainment industry can be so demanding, but the kids come first and my work has to fit around them.” On the surface, she had the hat trick: family, career, success.
A judging panel seat on The X Factor Australia, laughing alongside Ronan Keating and Mel B. Riding the financial rollercoaster of launching her children’s clothing label, Chi Khi. But behind the achievements was a woman grappling with self-hatred, spiralling anxiety and the pressure of living a life forever witnessed.
In 2018, Bassingthwaighte experienced a breakdown that forced a full-system reboot and a family move to Byron Bay. The opportunity to play an opioid-addicted housewife in the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill in 2021 loosened the lid on long-held memories.
“The pregnancy. The affair. The baby. It was as if every secret I’d ever buried had decided to claw its way out under the glare of a spotlight.”
Performing the rawness and rage of the character felt like possession – or rebirth. Part of her metamorphosis into the truth teller she is today was her slow-burn friendship with the production’s stage manager, Pip Loth (who identifies as non-binary), which deepened into romantic love. After a complicated, confusing transition, Bassingthwaighte gave into her feelings.
“Falling for Pip definitely came out of nowhere, but the connection was undeniable.” Photos of the couple at Flemington Racecourse, or at Niagara Falls where Bassingthwaighte proposed, show them both radiating with joy. “You know that you’re with the right person when you both want every desire, dream and goal of the other to come true,” Bassingthwaighte says. “I look at Pip and say, ‘If you get this tour, you gotta go!’ We’re like that for each other.” It was a twist that no-one saw coming.
“My Melbourne friends have asked me, ‘So, are you a lesbian now?’ And I reply, ‘I don’t know, my girlfriend thinks I am!’ I guess that’s my tagline. I have always loved the feminine body. But do we really need a label?”
With time and care, her family unit has realigned. “Kids these days are just extraordinary – so open, welcoming and forgiving. Cam and I are great co-parents; we are building a village-style family. And Pip has been wonderful, too.
She tells Harper, ‘If you ever get yourself in trouble and don’t want to call Mum and Dad, I’m here.’” In 2026, Bassingthwaighte stands at the apogee of her career, kicking goals across multiple creative genres.
Slightly pinching herself, she’s taking on the lead role in the romantic drama Love, Wine & Valentine. “It’s a female-driven story about Sophie, a woman with a difficult ex. He stands in the way of her moving on, so she sets him up with another woman. I get to work with Tam Sainsbury, a beautiful Australian director.”
There’s also the release of a new Rogue Traders album, Midnight Alarms – 21 years after Here Come the Drums burned up the charts – accompanied by The Anthems tour. Without missing a beat, Bassingthwaighte then returns to her theatrical roots to star in Broadway musical Waitress – another strong role, led by a female creative team.
Clearly, this is going to be a very good decade for Bassingthwaighte, loved up and soaring professionally. “It’s amazing what’s happening for me at 50,” she says. “I remember, at 30, thinking it was probably all over for me.
I never knew what peaks lay ahead. It’s thrilling and rewarding, so I’m making the most of it. Producers like Oprah and Reese Witherspoon are bringing mature women to the forefront of film and TV.
Guess what, we want to watch ourselves! Our stories are being told more.” Love Like This exists in that space – lingering on what it costs to be a woman shaped, and misshaped, by the world’s gaze, concluding that relentless growth isn’t worth losing yourself for.
“It was emotional finishing the book because it caught up to the present day – separation, co-parenting,” Bassingthwaighte says. “I had to send it to my ex and my fiancé for approval. That was terrifying. My stomach was in knots.”
Of the many lessons distilled from her life, the one she wants readers to take away is simple: hold on to hope. “When you are true to who you are, there is always hope,” she says. “Hope is positivity; a reminder of the good things. You just have to hold on to it.”
Choosing to explore her deepest fears and mistakes, rather than present a perfect and polished portrait, has become a masterclass in finding both liberation and peace. “I’m happy for you to write whatever you want,” she says with a smile, as we say goodbye. Once you lay it all on the line, you have nothing to fear.
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